UB Sociologist Explores Limit of Merit In Higher Education

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- What determines the academic merit of educators in universities and colleges today? Is the modern rule still "publish or perish?"

In a new edition of a previously published book, a University at Buffalo sociologist points out that research and publication may not necessarily be the prime considerations of academic qualification.

"Scaling the Ivory Tower" (Transaction 1998) by Lionel S. Lewis, professor of higher education and former chair and director of graduate studies in the UB Department of Sociology, explores the limit of merit in academic careers.

Lewis, an expert on the sociology of higher education, as well as social stratification, affirms in a new introduction that the most apparent changes in higher education since the book's first publication in 1975 are that campuses are less meritocratic and are losing their reputation as a place where quality academic work is recognized and rewarded.

In the book, he considers highly charged subjects such as academic freedom, sexism, merit and tenure in the university setting. He also scrutinizes academic freedom cases from the archives of the American Association of University Professors and explores such topics as how spouses and "significant others" factor into promotions; a typical day in the life, both academic and personal, of a professor; how the celebrity syndrome has spread to campuses; discrimination against minorities, and bureaucracy as a contributing factor to malaise on campus.

Lewis discusses how university communities are convinced that academic life can only be improved when the demographics of faculty reflect those in the larger society and how the need to consider age, gender, ethnicity and race in personnel decisions affects considerations of merit.

Another book by Lewis, "Marginal Worth: Teaching and the Academic Labor Market" (1996 Transaction), maintains that teaching alone will not rise in the reward system of higher education and contends that colleges and universities should lighten teaching loads of faculty members so that they have more time to conduct research.